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In the 1993 cult movie Groundhog
Day, Bill Murray plays an ego-centric TV
weather man doomed to repeat the same day over and over
again—until he consciously decides to evolve into a better
version of himself to win over Rita, his station director.
Bill must live Groundhog Day over and over until he gets it
right.

As Phil progresses by trial and error, hit and miss, his old
habit patterns that had led to dead ends shift into a new pattern
leading to new identity and community. In effect, by seeing what
wasn’t working well for him, Phil gains immense conversational
intelligence and wins over his love interest in the process. He
even becomes a respected community leader, someone who can gain
trust and get extraordinary results.

What changed for Phil? His motive and means become aligned with
his intended mission.

Every entrepreneur can relate to Phil’s predicament: how to
evolve beyond a narrow core skill-set into a respected developer
of self, business and community. And yet, all too often, we get
stuck in a Groundhog Day rut and get
sucked into territoriality or reactivity. These cycles lead to
behavior that erodes relationships, dissipates energy, and takes
away from being productive, healthy, high-performing individuals,
teams, and organizations. In the worst of these scenarios, we
become harvesters of politics, power, control, arrogance and egos
that fill organizations with invisible signs that say, don’t go
there, you can’t do this, you don’t know that, save face, blame,
protect, win at another’s expense.

To change, we need to tap into the vital instincts hard-wired
into each of us. These natural instincts provide us with codes
for how to live healthy and connect deeply and lovingly with each
other. Vital instincts give us the intuitive awareness and wisdom
to know how to bring together people to form communities, to
support each other, to thrive in the face of challenges, to
transform cancerous cultures riddled with politics, power, and
dysfunction back into healthy cultures.

Here are three conversational strategies for interrupting old
habit patterns and activating new patterns for success in
relationships, teams and organizations:

Pattern # 1: Being the center of attentionSymptom: You do most of the talking in the
meetings you run.
Why you do it: You love to hear yourself talk
and it feels great.
Why you should change: Your selfish behavior
makes your team feeling ignored.
What to do: Stop talking and make your team the
center of attention. Everyone has good ideas to share, but if you
put your ideas first you’ll soon find people’s initiatives and
voice dry up. When people are afraid of your positional power
they stop raising their hands to add ideas.

Pattern # 2: Insensitivity to others feelings, needs and
aspirationsSymptom: You’re too often surprised to find a
staffer angry with something you said – or didn’t say.
Why you do it: You’re not worrying enough about
how you and your actions impact other people.
Why you should change: When we aren’t
considering other people, we stop focusing on what they need help
with to be successful. As a result, people lose their aspirations
and passions for success. They can even start to trust their
bosses less, since they don’t believe their bosses have the
staff’s best interests in mind.
What to do: Create a feedback-rich culture where
it’s not about ‘me,’ it’s about ‘we’. Find ways to check in with
staffers and identify needs, give healthy candid and caring
feedback, and support people achieving their aspirations. In a
feedback-rich culture, a new level of honesty and awareness
emerges so that people don’t feel territorial and learn to
support each other.

Pattern # 3: No one ever agrees with you.Symptom: You’re always frustrated that no one
listens to your point of view. You might find yourself shut out
of discussions or that decisions are made without you.
Why you do it: Neuroscience research is showing
us entrenchment to your own point of view leads to the ‘addiction
to being right.’ Dopamine is released each time we feel we’re
right – and we want more – closing down our awareness of the
negative impact it has on others.
Why you should change: You stop picking up cues
and feedback and people think of us a ‘bully boss.’
What to do: Instead of debating a point, start
exploring solutions. Create opportunities for other people to
share what they think. Listen to them and act on their ideas. The
more people engage in becoming navigators of the future together,
the more courage they have for taking innovative risks.